On 1/3/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
This is an increasing problem. Some of the users who cause most trouble do very little editing of articles, and trying to deal with their trolling on talk pages can be soul-destroying. Yet block one of them and their friends scream blue murder, aided and abetted by certain admins who should know better. It's something we need to get a grip on because it's going to keep getting worse, and eventually they'll start affecting policy.
Unfortunately, some of these admins *don't* know better. Recently I've seen people become admins with thousands of edits, but under a hundred Talk: page comments, and others who became admins with as few as 16 people voting for them. People who have had so little interaction with other Wikipedians, or who are so unknown that there aren't even 20 Wikipedians willing to vouch for them, are simply not members of the Wikipedia community in any meaningful way. It is not surprising, then, when they act in ways which display an ignorance of, or go against Wikipedia norms (e.g. unblocking blocked users without even first discussing the block with the blocking admin). The purpose of Wikipedia is not to create a website where people can set up really cool user pages, or engage in wheel wars. Nor is its purpose to create a website where one can endlessly pontificate on the actions of other editors, and devise more and more policies to control their actions in increasingly bizarre ways. Rather, the purpose of Wikipedia is to create a great encyclopedia.
Jay.
I am noticing some of the same issues: Users are slipping through RfA without much opposition, but without much community support either. They seem to be decent editors, mostly doing work in a small area of Wikipedia, and when (self)nominated for adminship, they get their "Wikifriends" to support them, and boom! admin tools. Inevitably, wheel warring (large or small) will happen from these admins, because they actually don't understand or generally support the long-standing policies that we have here.
I almost hate to say this, but with the growing size and popularity of Wikipedia, we might need to start treating adminship truly as a big deal.
-- Ben Emmel Wikipedia - User:Bratsche bratsche1@gmail.com "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." -- William Blake
On 1/3/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
I almost hate to say this, but with the growing size and popularity of Wikipedia, we might need to start treating adminship truly as a big deal.
So what you're saying is: Too much privilege (and prestige) and not enough responsibility? How do we fix it?
I would like Jimbo to change the "no big deal" philosophy, and I'd like to see no one promoted without a minimum number of votes: I've suggested 30 elsewhere. That would be a start.
Sarah
On 1/3/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
I almost hate to say this, but with the growing size and popularity of Wikipedia, we might need to start treating adminship truly as a big deal.
So what you're saying is: Too much privilege (and prestige) and not enough responsibility? How do we fix it?
Steve
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Admins have plenty of responsibility. There's a lot of work to be done. However, there needs to be a certain measure of accountability, and that candidates that go through RfA clearly need to show that they understand and will follow all the major policies of Wikipedia: Blocking, deletion, NPA, AGF and all that good stuff.
The only way I can see in fixing it is to be more stringent in RfA nominations
-- Ben Emmel Wikipedia - User:Bratsche bratsche1@gmail.com "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." -- William Blake
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ben Emmel
I almost hate to say this, but with the growing size and popularity of Wikipedia, we might need to start treating adminship truly as a big deal.
Not mentioning any names, but you are spot on. For some users, adminship is the only reason they get up in the morning.
In fact, judging by the number of edits some people make, WP is the only reason they get up in the morning. And the only thing they do all day.
And yes, I realise that this is probably the wrong forum to question either of these attitudes.
Peter, part-time Wikipedian
[OT Alert]
In fact, judging by the number of edits some people make, WP is the only reason they get up in the morning. And the only thing they do all day.
Hey I did that for two weeks. But I was unemployed. And in my job interview (for a tech writing position) I raved about Wikipedia. And ironically the first document I was asked to proofread started, by total coincidence, with the words "According to Wikipedia".
Steve
On 1/3/06, Ben Emmel bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/3/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
This is an increasing problem. Some of the users who cause most trouble do very little editing of articles, and trying to deal with their trolling on talk pages can be soul-destroying. Yet block one of them and their friends scream blue murder, aided and abetted by certain admins who should know better. It's something we need to get a grip on because it's going to keep getting worse, and eventually they'll start affecting policy.
Unfortunately, some of these admins *don't* know better. Recently I've seen people become admins with thousands of edits, but under a hundred Talk: page comments, and others who became admins with as few as 16 people voting
for
them. People who have had so little interaction with other Wikipedians, or who are so unknown that there aren't even 20 Wikipedians willing to
vouch
for them, are simply not members of the Wikipedia community in any meaningful way. It is not surprising, then, when they act in ways which display an ignorance of, or go against Wikipedia norms (e.g. unblocking blocked users without even first discussing the block with the blocking admin). The purpose of Wikipedia is not to create a website where
people
can set up really cool user pages, or engage in wheel wars. Nor is its purpose to create a website where one can endlessly pontificate on the actions of other editors, and devise more and more policies to control their actions in increasingly bizarre ways. Rather, the purpose of Wikipedia
is
to create a great encyclopedia.
Jay.
I am noticing some of the same issues: Users are slipping through RfA without much opposition, but without much community support either. They seem to be decent editors, mostly doing work in a small area of Wikipedia, and when (self)nominated for adminship, they get their "Wikifriends" to support them, and boom! admin tools. Inevitably, wheel warring (large or small) will happen from these admins, because they actually don't understand or generally support the long-standing policies that we have here.
I almost hate to say this, but with the growing size and popularity of Wikipedia, we might need to start treating adminship truly as a big deal.
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
Chris
On 1/3/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
Talrias, the point is that some editors believe there may be a problem with the way admins are being elected, and so we are discussing the situation in general terms, using examples (with no names) as appropriate. If you do not believe there is a problem, you're welcome to say so, or not to take part in the discussion, but it's perhaps unhelpful to try to stop others from having it.
Sarah
On 1/3/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific
administrator,
in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with
another
admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet,
with
no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been
to
an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo
is
"too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to
articles,
the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look
at
his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
Chris, the list *is* the place to raise discuss these issues; characterizing this as "complaining" or "whining" is far more likely to engender ill-will than raising the issues in the first place.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific
administrator,
in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet,
with
no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been
to
an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
Chris
>>>>>>>>>>>
_______________________________________________
An RFAr would cause just as much or more ill will. I think it's fine to use specific examples when talking about larger Wikipedia issues.
On 1/3/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
The reality is that de-admining isn't a simple process and it's only likely to be successful in clear cases of admin misconduct. In cases where an admin hasn't blatantly abused his powers, but has made many poor judgement calls, there's not much that can be done. Even if the ArbCom accepts the case, it's likely going to cause more problems than it solves.
The solution (and problem) lies in the selection of admins, which I believe has become too lax. We need to recognize that adminship on a top 30 website IS a big deal. Even one admin who's unfamiliar with policy or who gets into wheel wars can cause major issues. We need stricter screening of candidates, preferably as soon as possible.
Carbonite
I agree, but I would add that I have at least as many concerns about certain long-time admins as I do about certain new ones. In some ways, errant newbies are easier to deal with- they may be more receptive to criticism. Many of the old timers appear to be far too confident in the correctness of their actions.
Friday
On 1/3/06, Carbonite carbonite.wp@gmail.com wrote:
The solution (and problem) lies in the selection of admins, which I believe has become too lax. We need to recognize that adminship on a top 30 website IS a big deal. Even one admin who's unfamiliar with policy or who gets into wheel wars can cause major issues. We need stricter screening of candidates, preferably as soon as possible.
Carbonite _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
"Carbonite" wrote
The reality is that de-admining isn't a simple process and it's only
likely to be successful in clear cases of admin misconduct. In cases where an admin hasn't blatantly abused his powers, but has made many poor judgement calls, there's not much that can be done.
I certainly remember a time - and it can't have been so long ago - when it was generally assumed that one could reason with Wikipedians. Indeed we were rather reluctant to write off individuals as irrational.
Does that not scale, then?
Charles
On 1/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I certainly remember a time - and it can't have been so long ago - when it was generally assumed that one could reason with Wikipedians. Indeed we were rather reluctant to write off individuals as irrational.
Does that not scale, then?
Based on my experiences in the last three months as an Arbitrator, no.
Kelly
charles matthews wrote:
"Carbonite" wrote
The reality is that de-admining isn't a simple process and it's only
likely to be successful in clear cases of admin misconduct. In cases where an admin hasn't blatantly abused his powers, but has made many poor judgement calls, there's not much that can be done.
I certainly remember a time - and it can't have been so long ago - when it was generally assumed that one could reason with Wikipedians. Indeed we were rather reluctant to write off individuals as irrational.
Does that not scale, then?
When I first joined prospective sysops were expected to join the mailing list.
Writing off individuals is again irrational; it's more efficient to write off whole groups. :-)
Ec
The solution (and problem) lies in the selection of admins, which I believe has become too lax. We need to recognize that adminship on a top 30 website IS a big deal. Even one admin who's unfamiliar with policy or who gets into wheel wars can cause major issues. We need stricter screening of candidates, preferably as soon as possible.
What's strange to me is that it seems that WP is one of the few places where you could really provide a comprehensive CV of all the good you've done and why you should be admin. Why not ask candidates to provide X diffs demonstrating their dispute resolution skills, and invite nay-sayers to provide diffs of bad judgement? Simple statistics should mandatorily be collected which would show roughly what sort of Wikipedia member they are: How many different talk pages have they left comments on? How many user talk pages have they left 2 or more comments on? How long have they been active? What is their activity pattern? How many edits have all the people voting for them made?
I like stats!
Steve
On 1/3/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
What's strange to me is that it seems that WP is one of the few places where you could really provide a comprehensive CV of all the good you've done and why you should be admin. Why not ask candidates to provide X diffs demonstrating their dispute resolution skills, and invite nay-sayers to provide diffs of bad judgement? Simple statistics should mandatorily be collected which would show roughly what sort of Wikipedia member they are: How many different talk pages have they left comments on? How many user talk pages have they left 2 or more comments on? How long have they been active? What is their activity pattern? How many edits have all the people voting for them made?
I like stats!
Steve
Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task
People keep seem to be forgeting this.
-- geni
On 1/3/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task
People keep seem to be forgeting this.
-- geni
Thanks Geni. I was trying to think of a way to say that
On 1/3/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/3/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Dispute resolution is not an admin task
People keep seem to be forgeting this.
Thanks Geni. I was trying to think of a way to say that
It isn't, but being able to handle a dispute in an adult and reasonable manner certainly IS required. Most administrative tasks have a high potential to be controversial (e.g. deletion, blocking) and I don't want to appoint someone who won't be able to handle such situations.
-Matt
On 1/4/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/3/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/3/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Dispute resolution is not an admin task
People keep seem to be forgeting this.
Thanks Geni. I was trying to think of a way to say that
It isn't, but being able to handle a dispute in an adult and reasonable manner certainly IS required. Most administrative tasks have a high potential to be controversial (e.g. deletion, blocking) and I don't want to appoint someone who won't be able to handle such situations.
-Matt
I agree with this. I'd like to see someone who, if they have the inclination to jump into things likely to be controversial such as deletion or blocking, will handle it well. Evidence of good dispute resolution skills in other aspects of editing is a sign that misunderstandings regarding these things will be worked out reasonably.
-Kat
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage | (G)AIM:LucidWaking "Once you have tasted flight you will always walk with your eyes cast upward. For there you have been and there you will always be." - Leonardo da Vinci
On 1/4/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/3/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/3/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Dispute resolution is not an admin task
People keep seem to be forgeting this.
Thanks Geni. I was trying to think of a way to say that
It isn't, but being able to handle a dispute in an adult and reasonable manner certainly IS required. Most administrative tasks have a high potential to be controversial (e.g. deletion, blocking) and I don't want to appoint someone who won't be able to handle such situations.
-Matt
Seen my deletion log lately? Why am I need being screamed at for makeing controversial descissions?
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 1/3/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
What's strange to me is that it seems that WP is one of the few places where you could really provide a comprehensive CV of all the good you've done and why you should be admin. Why not ask candidates to provide X diffs demonstrating their dispute resolution skills, and invite nay-sayers to provide diffs of bad judgement? Simple statistics should mandatorily be collected which would show roughly what sort of Wikipedia member they are: How many different talk pages have they left comments on? How many user talk pages have they left 2 or more comments on? How long have they been active? What is their activity pattern? How many edits have all the people voting for them made?
I like stats!
Steve
Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task Dispute resolution is not an admin task
People keep seem to be forgeting this.
Same applies to helpdesk-l (and possibly wikien-l and wikipedia-l, too)...
All this discussion of admin standards is pretty funny, when so many of the longtime admins who end up pontificating on policy got their post within virtually no support votes at all... hell, look at mine, not that I consider myself that much of an oldtimer: 3 votes. That's it. I'd been on Wikipedia all of two months, with only ~600 edits. Even then (which was late 2003), there was some discussion of how it might be too HARD for people to become admins, as we then (and much, much, much more now) needed more people able to fight vandals effectively.
It's often underappreciated just how important that little rollback link is for efficiently removing vandalism from a large number of pages. And we need more people to have it. Many times, I'll set Recent Changes to hide logged-in users, 500 edits to a page, and 'diff' everything on that page... and while all those edits will have scrolled off the view of anyone else trying that by the time I'm done, there'll still be a bunch of uncaught blatant profanity edits that slipped through. It's like a firehose sometimes. (I'm inclined to make some strained simile involving strainers or buckets and not enough, etc... but I won't.) It's simple: WE NEED MORE ADMINS.
I do agree with the 'admin status is no big deal' line of thought. If we invest too much in it, it gets hard to get people on the team rolling back vandalism and taking care of speedy-delete material (though a standard policy of simply blanking pages instead of worrying about deletion would help on that score). Furthermore, it fosters the very annoying trend to drag every admin into ever more arcane WikiPolitics and layers of bureaucracy... the powers are there to be a janitor, not a legislator. They're unrelated. (I don't enjoy spending my time on talkpages... if I want to have a discussion with someone, I use email or MUX, not a wiki page... and VFD is a bilious slimefest I'd be happy to see gone entirely.)
Maybe giving people block/ban powers is a big deal, however. Since the proposals for bureaucrats, Arbitrators, and the like eventually did go through, maybe block powers can be split off of adminship and given to some other userclass, and we can thoroughly establish once and for all that an admin's job is maintenance. Maybe even rename the label: 'Maintainer', 'Janitor', etc. I don't really care what you call it, but apparently 'Administrator' gets people thinking too much about it meaning you're the boss... and I have to admit it gets heavily misinterpreted outside WP: If I tell someone that I'm an administrator on Wikipedia, they think I'm saying I'm on the Foundation board, or a siteadmin, or a developer. As WP's public pfoile continues to rise, that'll be more of an issue as "Wikipedia Administrator" J. Random Wikipedian gets quoted in a news article as an authoritative source of official opinion.
Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
-- Jake Nelson
Hi, Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole clue. Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated good judgement, preferably on the previous levels.
Not to make it a prestige thing, of course...
Steve
On 1/4/06, Jake Nelson duskwave@gmail.com wrote:
All this discussion of admin standards is pretty funny, when so many of the longtime admins who end up pontificating on policy got their post within virtually no support votes at all... hell, look at mine, not that I consider myself that much of an oldtimer: 3 votes. That's it. I'd been on Wikipedia all of two months, with only ~600 edits. Even then (which was late 2003), there was some discussion of how it might be too HARD for people to become admins, as we then (and much, much, much more now) needed more people able to fight vandals effectively.
It's often underappreciated just how important that little rollback link is for efficiently removing vandalism from a large number of pages. And we need more people to have it. Many times, I'll set Recent Changes to hide logged-in users, 500 edits to a page, and 'diff' everything on that page... and while all those edits will have scrolled off the view of anyone else trying that by the time I'm done, there'll still be a bunch of uncaught blatant profanity edits that slipped through. It's like a firehose sometimes. (I'm inclined to make some strained simile involving strainers or buckets and not enough, etc... but I won't.) It's simple: WE NEED MORE ADMINS.
I do agree with the 'admin status is no big deal' line of thought. If we invest too much in it, it gets hard to get people on the team rolling back vandalism and taking care of speedy-delete material (though a standard policy of simply blanking pages instead of worrying about deletion would help on that score). Furthermore, it fosters the very annoying trend to drag every admin into ever more arcane WikiPolitics and layers of bureaucracy... the powers are there to be a janitor, not a legislator. They're unrelated. (I don't enjoy spending my time on talkpages... if I want to have a discussion with someone, I use email or MUX, not a wiki page... and VFD is a bilious slimefest I'd be happy to see gone entirely.)
Maybe giving people block/ban powers is a big deal, however. Since the proposals for bureaucrats, Arbitrators, and the like eventually did go through, maybe block powers can be split off of adminship and given to some other userclass, and we can thoroughly establish once and for all that an admin's job is maintenance. Maybe even rename the label: 'Maintainer', 'Janitor', etc. I don't really care what you call it, but apparently 'Administrator' gets people thinking too much about it meaning you're the boss... and I have to admit it gets heavily misinterpreted outside WP: If I tell someone that I'm an administrator on Wikipedia, they think I'm saying I'm on the Foundation board, or a siteadmin, or a developer. As WP's public pfoile continues to rise, that'll be more of an issue as "Wikipedia Administrator" J. Random Wikipedian gets quoted in a news article as an authoritative source of official opinion.
Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
-- Jake Nelson _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Steve Bennett wrote:
Hi, Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole clue. Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated good judgement, preferably on the previous levels.
Not to make it a prestige thing, of course...
Actually this is not as much of a Bad Idea as it sounds. We've long had a debate about "request for rollback" but that was always dismissed due to the JS emulation. But now that semi-protection exists, should we seperate out the administrative powers?
On 1/4/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole clue. Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated good judgement, preferably on the previous levels.
Not to make it a prestige thing, of course...
Steve
You could always give rollback, delete, undelete, protect and unprotect powers to everyone, at least everyone with more than X edits.
Of course that would require banning users that abuse that power, which I suppose is the real problem with adminship too: no one is stepping up and removing the powers when they are abused.
The whole theory that adminship "should be no big deal" is based on the fact that admins have no authority and that adminship can be taken away. The arb committee is what's really broken. Actually, I'd say the arb committee never worked all that well in the first place.
Anthony
On 1/4/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole clue. Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated good judgement, preferably on the previous levels.
I think the software has been capable of doing something of this sort for ages. There was even some kind of policy proposal for handing out rollback privs to anyone who looked clueful and showed willing (easy to spot, you just look at the best rc patrollers who haven't yet got the privs).
You could always give rollback, delete, undelete, protect and unprotect powers to everyone, at least everyone with more than X edits.
Of course that would require banning users that abuse that power, which I suppose is the real problem with adminship too: no one is stepping up and removing the powers when they are abused.
The whole theory that adminship "should be no big deal" is based on the fact that admins have no authority and that adminship can be taken away. The arb committee is what's really broken. Actually, I'd say the arb committee never worked all that well in the first place.
Anthony
A voice of reason! The problem isn't people being voted in w too few votes, its the very idea of a popularity contest determining our police force. And thats what admins are, they ARE NOT JANITORS. That has got to be one of the stupidest wiki-concepts I have come across.
The #1 admin job is dispute resolution, like it or not, and good dispute resolution is not indicated by the % of interested voters who happen to be a part of ones clique, faction, or cabal ;)
RfA needs a compete overhaul, and a 30 vote minimum is NOT the answer. Jimbo told me that RfA is working great, perhaps we'd better clue him in?
Sam Spade
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
The #1 admin job is dispute resolution, like it or not,
Evidence? Policy does not support your claim. The way the softwear works does not support your claim (protection is hardly dispute resolution it is mearly reduceing the heat). The way admin powers are used does not support you claim (cheack the log).
-- geni
On 1/4/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
The #1 admin job is dispute resolution, like it or not,
Evidence? Policy does not support your claim. The way the softwear works does not support your claim (protection is hardly dispute resolution it is mearly reduceing the heat). The way admin powers are used does not support you claim (cheack the log).
-- geni
Its overwhelmingly obvious. You already know I'm right. "Reducing the heat"?
Sam Spade
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
Its overwhelmingly obvious. You already know I'm right.
So RFC and Medation and arbcom don't exist because it is all handled by admins? We have nearly 800 admins so if they are doing disspute resolution then we should not see many dissputes that are not already being handled. This does not appear to be the case.
"Reducing the heat"?
Sam Spade
Protecting an article does not resolve the disspute. It mearly increase the pressure on those involved to talk to each other.
-- geni
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
The #1 admin job is dispute resolution, like it or not, and good dispute resolution is not indicated by the % of interested voters who happen to be a part of ones clique, faction, or cabal ;)
Dispute resolution does not require administrative rights. Some of our best dispute resolution people are not admins.
Kelly
Steve Bennett wrote:
Hi, Time for hiercharchies of admins? Give "rollback" powers to anyone with half a clue. Save temporary block powers for people with a whole clue. Save permanent block/ban powers for people with demonstrated good judgement, preferably on the previous levels.
Not to make it a prestige thing, of course...
See [[Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges]].
Chris
On 1/4/06, Jake Nelson duskwave@gmail.com wrote:
All this discussion of admin standards is pretty funny, when so many of the longtime admins who end up pontificating on policy got their post within virtually no support votes at all... hell, look at mine, not that I consider myself that much of an oldtimer: 3 votes. That's it. I'd been on Wikipedia all of two months, with only ~600 edits. Even then (which was late 2003), there was some discussion of how it might be too HARD for people to become admins, as we then (and much, much, much more now) needed more people able to fight vandals effectively.
Without commenting on whether your adminning was reasonable at the time, I'll just note that things are quite different now. English Wikipedia has over 800,000 articles, thousands of regular editors, and well over 700 admins.
It's not at all hard to be come an admin, and Wikipedia is currently creating a new admin a day. If I wanted to, I could create a sockpuppet account, use it for 20 minutes a day, and within 6 months have it to admin status. I already know of one banned edtior who was very close to succeeding at this (he was caught via other means), and I know of another problem editor who is currently preparing a sockpuppet (actually his third) for an adminship he will certainly receive (unless he is exposed first). The formula is quite simple, and the only reason I don't post it here is because if I do, other people will start using it.
It's often underappreciated just how important that little rollback link
is for efficiently removing vandalism from a large number of pages. And we need more people to have it. Many times, I'll set Recent Changes to hide logged-in users, 500 edits to a page, and 'diff' everything on that page... and while all those edits will have scrolled off the view of anyone else trying that by the time I'm done, there'll still be a bunch of uncaught blatant profanity edits that slipped through. It's like a firehose sometimes. (I'm inclined to make some strained simile involving strainers or buckets and not enough, etc... but I won't.) It's simple: WE NEED MORE ADMINS.
As I said, we have over 700 admins now, and in any event you don't need admin powers to revert vandalism. As well, the "semi-protection" template seems to be quite effective in calming down articles which are regularly vandalized, or which are undergoing a spate of vandalism. The issues I see as far more pressing aren't about vandalism, but are about registered users violating community interaction norms (e.g. personal attacks, uncivil behaviour, wikistalking) and content policies (in particular POV pushing).
Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to
make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator.
Jay.
On 1/5/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to
make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator.
Well I think we all agree about what the problem is here. So what do we do about it?
Ryan
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to
make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting
to
be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal
tools.
It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator.
Well I think we all agree about what the problem is here. So what do we do about it?
I don't think we all do agree on that. You appear to think the problem is that it's difficult to de-admin an administrator. I think the problem is that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in Wikipedia's goals.
Jay.
"jayjg" wrote
I think the problem is
that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in Wikipedia's goals.
The first point is how older generations always talk, of course. I.e. it is the postulation of a 'generation gap'.
Second point might be factually true. How many of us would like to take an exam on policy? Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough of the key policy pages? Why is there no 'Dummies' guide? (Well, maybe there is and I just don't come across it.) Norms - well, yes, community norms are what actually matter.
Not interested in WP's goals. Possible, though I wonder just how many people are interested in my current goals (this week, 1911 EB reference wikification and blue-linking, sort out and develop William Blake mythology, [[Category:Category theory]]).
There is a kind of progression: encourage people to have user accounts when they were happy as IPs; user pages too tribal or full of 'This Wikipedian drinks coffee' user boxes; RfA votes for people with too high a proportion of edits on User Talk pages, or vandal chasing, and not enough good name-space edits.
We have to live with all of this, by the way. Admin status is the major form of recognition open to everyone that means something (barnstars have long been debased currency, Featured Articles I can no longer be bothered with, as slanted to certain kinds of writing.)
Potential solutions:
- Stop talking about a gap in terms that can only accentuate it - Do something about a policy guide for non-veterans - New recognition mechanisms, raise the bar for admin creation for newcomers, more active research of committed content-oriented RfA candidates from those who quietly get on with it.
Charles
On 1/4/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough of the key policy pages? Why is there no 'Dummies' guide? (Well, maybe there is and I just don't come across it.) Norms - well, yes, community norms are what actually matter.
"Don't use admin powers to do anything that another admin might in good faith disagree with." I suspect that was the original intention of all the rules and policies regarding adminship, but I suppose that has since been extended. Still, it's not so bad if a new admin uses that as the primary rule unless they know of a policy which explicitly says otherwise.
Anthony
On 1/4/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Second point might be factually true. How many of us would like to take an exam on policy? Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough of the key policy pages?
No just take a look at WP:CSD.
Why is there no 'Dummies' guide? (Well, maybe there is and I just don't come across it.) Norms - well, yes, community norms are what actually matter.
Becuase you can't really simplify it. The way around the problem is that most admins specalise. I don't need to know the speedy delete stuff aplying to rediects becuase I never deal with it.
Potential solutions:
- Stop talking about a gap in terms that can only accentuate it
- Do something about a policy guide for non-veterans
Have you seen the size of the MOS lately? -- geni
charles matthews wrote:
"jayjg" wrote
I think the problem is
that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in Wikipedia's goals.
The first point is how older generations always talk, of course. I.e. it is the postulation of a 'generation gap'.
I for one am interested in knowing what the community feels are the different "generations" of Wikipedians, where the cutoffs are and what defines each group. I should have been a sociologist...
Second point might be factually true. How many of us would like to take an exam on policy? Is it any longer possible to be familiar with enough of the key policy pages? Why is there no 'Dummies' guide? (Well, maybe there is and I just don't come across it.) Norms - well, yes, community norms are what actually matter.
There /is/ a dummies guide - the admins reading list - know the deletion, protection and blocking policies, how to apply them, when to apply them, how to talk with other people.
Not interested in WP's goals. Possible, though I wonder just how many people are interested in my current goals (this week, 1911 EB reference wikification and blue-linking, sort out and develop William Blake mythology, [[Category:Category theory]]).
Between answering email and my talk page, if I can manage to get to my watchlist I maybe check half of the IP edits or those from users I don't know or haven't left an edit summary.
There is a kind of progression: encourage people to have user accounts when they were happy as IPs; user pages too tribal or full of 'This Wikipedian drinks coffee' user boxes; RfA votes for people with too high a proportion of edits on User Talk pages, or vandal chasing, and not enough good name-space edits.
I thought that one of the stated roles of admins /was/ to track down vandals; why else do they have the power to instantly rollback edits (which should *never* be used for non-vandalism), block users (which should only be used for vandals and 3RR violations; "annoying users" should be RFCed to try and get some sense into them, and if that doesn't work, ArbCom was formed to deal with it) and protect pages (which should be used for vandalism and 3RR, but *never* when the admin is involved in a content dispute)?
We have to live with all of this, by the way. Admin status is the major form of recognition open to everyone that means something (barnstars have long been debased currency, Featured Articles I can no longer be bothered with, as slanted to certain kinds of writing.)
Like any gift, a barnstar is only as valuable as the person who awards it.
Potential solutions:
- Stop talking about a gap in terms that can only accentuate it
The bomber gap only existed in the minds of those who feared it and those who gained power from that fear.
- Do something about a policy guide for non-veterans
We have the welcoming committee and (hopefully) well-thought welcome messages.
- New recognition mechanisms, raise the bar for admin creation for
newcomers, more active research of committed content-oriented RfA candidates from those who quietly get on with it.
Once upon a time (certainly in late 2004) it was pretty much a "requirement" for admin candidates to "have" a Featured Article. Then someone decided that editcountitis was a much better metric, so people started using that. Then it changed to how many edit summaries you use, and now it's probably whether you have an ass[1] on your user page. Who knows what it will be in six months time. Stop the Wiki, I want to get off...
[1] A donkey in a Democrats userbox, that is. An arse on your userpage is probably goatse left by some thoughtful vandal.
On 1/4/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
I for one am interested in knowing what the community feels are the different "generations" of Wikipedians, where the cutoffs are and what defines each group. I should have been a sociologist...
I had identified four generations of Wikipedians a while back. I think we may be seeing the birth of the fifth, though.
Kelly
On 1/5/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think we all do agree on that. You appear to think the problem is that it's difficult to de-admin an administrator. I think the problem is that we are creating administrators who are not part of the community, not familiar with its policies and norms, and not particularly interested in Wikipedia's goals.
This is really two ways of saying the same thing. I am agreeing that the standards at RFA need to be upped; it would be best if we never adminned someone who would have to lose it later. But we have to be realistic-- occasionally, the wrong people are going to get adminned, and we need a failsafe. That means we need a real, clean, and logical way to get irresponsible admins de-adminned.
Ryan
Ryan Delaney wrote:
On 1/5/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Further, when we find there's a bad admin, this doesn't mean "we need to
make it harder for people whose main contribution is vandal-fighting to be an admin", it means, fire their ass, deadmin them, and then get someone else. If all they do is get in fights with other uses or throw their weight around on talkpages, they don't need the anti-vandal tools.
It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator.
Well I think we all agree about what the problem is here. So what do we do about it?
For starters we could abandon the notion that elevation to adminship needs to be a "democratic" process.
Ec
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator.
Jay.
So lets change that.
Sam Spade
Is it really that hard at the moment? Two admins who have pulled my blocks have ended up as non admins.
-- geni
On 1/4/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
It turns out that, in practice, it is difficult to de-admin an administrator.
Jay.
So lets change that.
Sam Spade
Is it really that hard at the moment? Two admins who have pulled my blocks have ended up as non admins.
It's difficult, but certainly not impossible. Admins who have significantly abused their privileges have been de-adminned, but it's a lengthy process. And it may well be that it *should* be a lengthy process. Incoming quality control is almost always less expensive than cleaning up messes after the fact; that's why I'm arguing we need to focus on the adminning process, not the de-adminning process.
Jay.
On 1/4/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
It's difficult, but certainly not impossible. Admins who have significantly abused their privileges have been de-adminned, but it's a lengthy process. And it may well be that it *should* be a lengthy process. Incoming quality control is almost always less expensive than cleaning up messes after the fact; that's why I'm arguing we need to focus on the adminning process, not the de-adminning process.
Jay.
The problem is that if we make the process too difficult we will be getting people people makeing it to adminship about the time burnout hits. I think giving people better information to self select on would be a good idea.
-- geni
So RFC and Medation and arbcom don't exist because it is all handled by admins? We have nearly 800 admins so if they are doing disspute resolution then we should not see many dissputes that are not already being handled. This does not appear to be the case.
"Reducing the heat"?
Sam Spade
Protecting an article does not resolve the disspute. It mearly increase the pressure on those involved to talk to each other.
We seem to be talking past each other. Admins should do a better job of of dispute resolution, certainly. Many of them are wildly inadaquate for the job. Thats part of why its so important to overhaul the RfA process. We need more dispute resolution, and less "wheel warring", controversial blocks, and other such pathetic displays of power.
Sam Spade
On 1/4/06, Sam Spade samspade.thomasjefferson@googlemail.com wrote:
So RFC and Medation and arbcom don't exist because it is all handled by admins? We have nearly 800 admins so if they are doing disspute resolution then we should not see many dissputes that are not already being handled. This does not appear to be the case.
"Reducing the heat"?
Sam Spade
Protecting an article does not resolve the disspute. It mearly increase the pressure on those involved to talk to each other.
We seem to be talking past each other. Admins should do a better job of of dispute resolution, certainly. Many of them are wildly inadaquate for the job. Thats part of why its so important to overhaul the RfA process. We need more dispute resolution, and less "wheel warring", controversial blocks, and other such pathetic displays of power.
Sam Spade
Why should admins be doing disspute resultion? There are plently of other mechanisms for that and they do not require people to have admin powers. Frankly someone who is prepared to dig through [[WP:CP]] may not be an ideal person for dealing with dissputes.
Go through policy. Admins have no role in disspute resolution. Wheel warring is often a symptom of people failing to understnad this.
-- geni
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
It's not at all hard to be come an admin, and Wikipedia is currently creating a new admin a day. If I wanted to, I could create a sockpuppet account, use it for 20 minutes a day, and within 6 months have it to admin status. I already know of one banned edtior who was very close to succeeding at this (he was caught via other means), and I know of another problem editor who is currently preparing a sockpuppet (actually his third) for an adminship he will certainly receive (unless he is exposed first).
Presumably the thing to do would be to accept the good edits as a bonus and then expose him or her if an RfA emerged.
Peter (Skyring)
Steve Bennett wrote:
What's strange to me is that it seems that WP is one of the few places where you could really provide a comprehensive CV of all the good you've done and why you should be admin. Why not ask candidates to provide X diffs demonstrating their dispute resolution skills, and invite nay-sayers to provide diffs of bad judgement? Simple statistics should mandatorily be collected which would show roughly what sort of Wikipedia member they are: How many different talk pages have they left comments on? How many user talk pages have they left 2 or more comments on?
Were those comments polite?
Ec
On 1/4/06, Carbonite carbonite.wp@gmail.com wrote:
The solution (and problem) lies in the selection of admins, which I believe has become too lax. We need to recognize that adminship on a top 30 website IS a big deal. Even one admin who's unfamiliar with policy or who gets into wheel wars can cause major issues. We need stricter screening of candidates, preferably as soon as possible.
Carbonite
Incidentally, I agree with this, but the problem is that it will really become harder and harder to screen candidates accurately. Do you have any suggestions on how this could be done in some kind of scalable fashion?
Ryan
On 1/3/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
Incidentally, I agree with this, but the problem is that it will really become harder and harder to screen candidates accurately. Do you have any suggestions on how this could be done in some kind of scalable fashion?
Ryan
I think a simple way to do this is to start having a minimum number of net supports. 30, perhaps. This insures that the candidate is known enough around Wikipedia. When the readership and editor numbers of Wikipedia increases, so can the net support number, in order to accurately reflect the population.
Another way is to promote a change in the voting mindset. I think that we are too big and important to have support people with a simple "Oh, s/he looks like a good editor. '''Support''' ~~~~"
My personal policy is to only vote for a candidate if I can personally vouch for their editing, conflict handling, and janitorial abilities. There was a time when I would support every candidate that looked ready. I eventually realized that was only hurting the 'pedia, since even a good editor can go a bit crazy with admin tools due to a lack of understanding.
-- Ben Emmel Wikipedia - User:Bratsche bratsche1@gmail.com "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." -- William Blake
On 1/4/06, Ben Emmel bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
My personal policy is to only vote for a candidate if I can personally vouch for their editing, conflict handling, and janitorial abilities. There was a time when I would support every candidate that looked ready. I eventually realized that was only hurting the 'pedia, since even a good editor can go a bit crazy with admin tools due to a lack of understanding.
I vote this way too, but often that just means that the people who support everything will get their way, because I don't vote in most RFA's. Does that mean we should be voting oppose more, then? Or should we vote neutral with "I don't know this editor, so I can't support" to raise awareness of the idea that people shouldn't support editors they haven't personally interacted with?
I'm worried that a combination of the two -- a 30 support-vote minimum, and voters who won't support anyone they don't personally know -- might make it /too/ difficult to become an admin, though.
Ryan
On 1/3/06, Ben Emmel bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
I think a simple way to do this is to start having a minimum number of net supports. 30, perhaps. This insures that the candidate is known enough around Wikipedia. When the readership and editor numbers of Wikipedia increases, so can the net support number, in order to accurately reflect the population.
Please vote here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Proposal_...
My personal policy is to only vote for a candidate if I can personally vouch for their editing, conflict handling, and janitorial abilities.
I used to do that, but nowadays I hardly recognize any of the names, because they seem mostly to be people who fight vandalism rather than making substantive edits to articles. So I'm mostly at a loss as to how to vote and have largely given up.
Sarah
On 1/3/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Carbonite carbonite.wp@gmail.com wrote:
The solution (and problem) lies in the selection of admins, which I believe has become too lax. We need to recognize that adminship on a top 30 website IS a big deal. Even one admin who's unfamiliar with policy or who gets into wheel wars can cause major issues. We need stricter screening of candidates, preferably as soon as possible.
Carbonite
Incidentally, I agree with this, but the problem is that it will really become harder and harder to screen candidates accurately. Do you have any suggestions on how this could be done in some kind of scalable fashion?
Ryan
Make them do a better job of screening themselves. Rather than hitting them with a stupidly long sanitised reading list tell them what it really involves. Of course we would have to start by figureing out what admins really do.
-- geni
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He then unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do an editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
I didn't see that as complaining or whining. Since Jay dd not mention names, I see his comments as representing a real example of a more general problem. Your suggestion to put the matter into a bureaucratic meatgrinder could in theory solve the problem with that user, but it's not going to address the bigger problem that keeps recurring. with the big egos of some sysops.
Ec
On 1/4/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Here's an example of what I mean. I noticed that a specific administrator, in the last 12 hours, managed to get into a delete wheel war with another admin, get himself blocked for 3RR, and then unblocked himself. He
then
unblocked an obvious troll, without informing the blocking admin, and blocked another editor permanently, accusing him of being a sockpuppet, with no evidence that I am aware of. My curiousity piqued, I looked at his recent edits, and discovered that *none* of his past 600 edits have been to an article, but do find a comment he has posted today saying that Jimbo is "too busy asking for money" to deal with Wikipedia issues. I then do
an
editcount, and discover that of his 8700 edits, only 1800 are to articles, the *exact same number* of edits he has made to his User page. I look at his User page, and discover *86* user boxes on it.
What is going on here?
If you think he shouldn't be an admin, I invite you to file an RFAr about it, rather than complaining to the mailing list, which does nothing but create ill will amongst contributors.
I didn't see that as complaining or whining. Since Jay dd not mention names, I see his comments as representing a real example of a more general problem.
Thank you Ray, that's exactly the spirit in which I intended it, and the reason I did not name the individual in question.
Jay.
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
We came up with quite a list of proposals back in september. Did really manage to build consensus for any of the them but expanding it in various ways was proposed.
-- geni
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
Maybe the arb com needs to be thinking harder about how to improve arbcom. Would it be out of the arbcom's jurisdiction to establish groups of people to help them out? Couldn't they say "X, Y, and Z are beurocrats who, if the three of them agree, can temporarily de-admin a user; the arbcom reserves the power to overrule any decision they make"?
Anthony
On 1/4/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
Maybe the arb com needs to be thinking harder about how to improve arbcom. Would it be out of the arbcom's jurisdiction to establish groups of people to help them out? Couldn't they say "X, Y, and Z are beurocrats who, if the three of them agree, can temporarily de-admin a user; the arbcom reserves the power to overrule any decision they make"?
Anthony
General when we need to remove an admin fast we don't bother with official channels.
-- geni
On 1/4/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
Maybe the arb com needs to be thinking harder about how to improve arbcom. Would it be out of the arbcom's jurisdiction to establish groups of people to help them out? Couldn't they say "X, Y, and Z are beurocrats who, if the three of them agree, can temporarily de-admin a user; the arbcom reserves the power to overrule any decision they make"?
Anthony
General when we need to remove an admin fast we don't bother with official channels.
-- geni
Who said anything about acting fast? Ryan said the arb com was swamped. Unless the arbcom wound up reviewing every single instance of de-adminship, this would greatly reduce the load on them. In fact, even if they didn't review every single instance it'd still reduce the load on them, because someone else would have already organized the facts and reasons surrounding the issue. Finally, if *all* issues of de-adminship had to pass through that committee first, it'd eliminate the frivolous cases regarding de-adminship completely.
Whatever, though, it's up to the arb com what they want to do. Maybe they don't even think they're swamped.
Anthony
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours.
And this is the other side of the coin. While it is true that some admins abuse their privileges, the vastly more common case is that they faithfully execute their mandate, and then are falsely accused by trolls and borderline trolls of abusing their privileges. And, apparently, a growing number of cases involve administrators who use their powers (e.g. deleting, undeleting, blocking) in support of the actual goals of the project, and are then censured as "abusive" by people who are unfamiliar with policy, or value process over content, or who see Wikipedia's purpose as the creation of a vast social network or fledgling internet democracy.
Jay.
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
Nathan
On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell windrunner@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
I almost wish it were feasible to make a "Request for De-adminship" where someone could be nominated for admin removal as a result of a user conduct RFC, but then I realize what a trollpit that would become in a matter of hours. Arbcom is really the only way to take away admin rights with any measure of civillity and rationality. And they are swamped.
Maybe we need to be thinking harder about how to improve Arbcom.
Ryan
Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
Nathan
Again we disscussed this back in about september. It got some support but there were worries about there being enough good candidates.
-- geni
On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell windrunner@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
This was rejected because currently, all Arbitrators must hear all cases, so adding to Arbcom doesn't reduce the amount of work. Having a low quorum, or splitting the Arbcom into two panels, means you get an incoherent political situation where the result of the RFA is determined by the randomly selected makeup of the panel. What will happen when one Arbcom disagrees with the other?
The idea that some people floated, that I picked up, was creating "lower courts", probably made up of a single user, that would hear cases originally; and Arbcom would only hear cases on appeal. I wrote up a proposal (with some help from others) at [[User:Ryan Delaney/sandbox]], but it seems the idea has been dropped. A pity, since it seemed like a rather good one- it could solve all the problems we have right now.
Ryan
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/06, Nathan Russell windrunner@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps Arbcom could be enlarged, and start forming qorums of 5-6 to hear the incoming cases on some sort of rotating basis?
This was rejected because currently, all Arbitrators must hear all cases, so adding to Arbcom doesn't reduce the amount of work. Having a low quorum, or splitting the Arbcom into two panels, means you get an incoherent political situation where the result of the RFA is determined by the randomly selected makeup of the panel. What will happen when one Arbcom disagrees with the other?
Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good bureaucratic system.
Garion
On 1/5/06, Garion1000 garion1000@gmail.com wrote:
Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good bureaucratic system.
Two points:
(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there. (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible drawbacks.
Ryan
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/06, Garion1000 garion1000@gmail.com wrote:
Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though.
They
consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken
up
by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good bureaucratic system.
Two points:
(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there.
I should have seen that one coming. :)
(2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible drawbacks.
I think lower courts would make it even more like a bureaucracy. Now it's Arb and perhaps an appeal to Jimbo. WIth a lower court it would be one more step. Besides the RFC and other dispute procedures.
Not that I have a perfect solution though. :)
Garion
Ryan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ryan Delaney wrote:
On 1/5/06, Garion1000 garion1000@gmail.com wrote:
Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good bureaucratic system.
Two points:
(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there. (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court
You seem to forget that you inherited that from the Westminster system :)
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/06, Garion1000 garion1000@gmail.com wrote:
Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good bureaucratic system.
Two points:
(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there. (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible drawbacks.
Ryan
Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work. "In a court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of the judges will participate in an en banc hearing." [[United States court of appeals]]
I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.
Anthony
On 1/5/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work. "In a court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of the judges will participate in an en banc hearing." [[United States court of appeals]]
I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.
The advantages, as I see it, are:
(1) Nearly infinite scalability. If we have more work to do, we can just add more magistrates. This would mean that the arbitration process could, if needed, expand to cover a greater range of subjects, including revoking admin privileges. Also, it would reduce arbitrator burnout since each magistrate would choose how many cases he or she would hear; and since each case would already have a "findings of fact" and a ruling on it before it got to Arbcom, the Arbs would have to de less work just to comprehend all the information and figure out what is going on.
(2) Preserved accountability. Right now, we worry that there aren't enough editors who are trustworthy enough to be arbitrators. I share this concern. By appointing magistrates, we have to worry less, since their actions could always be reviewed and reversed by a higher panel of trusted users. Arbcom could let the good work get done, and step in to issue corrections on appeals.
Possible disadvantages include:
(1) An increase in bureaucratic steps required to end the arbitration process. It might complicate the arbitration policy. I don't think this is much of a concern really, but you can see for yourself what I think the effect on the arbitration policy would be by looking at [[User:Ryan Delaney/sandbox]] and decide for yourself.
Ryan
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 1/5/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/5/06, Garion1000 garion1000@gmail.com wrote:
Many supreme courts or international courts do work like this though. They consist for instance totally of 10 judges but some cases are just taken up by three of them. I haven't encountered any inconsistencies there. Although I do not know how they solved it. Probably because they have and use a good bureaucratic system.
Two points:
(1) WP:ISNOT a bureaucracy. :-) I had to get that out there. (2) I'm probably more interested in the lower-court system since I'm from the United States and I'm modelling this after the Supremer Court. My main point, however, is that while increasing the number of Arbs may improve the situation, it couldn't improve the situtation any more than a lower court system would also- but the lower court system would have fewer possible drawbacks.
Ryan
Regarding number 2, this is how the US appeals courts work. "In a court of appeals, an appeal is almost always heard by a "panel" of three of the court's judges, although there are instances where all of the judges will participate in an en banc hearing." [[United States court of appeals]]
I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages are supposed to be.
En banc hearings are important when the court anticipates that the decision may set important legal precedents.
An important distinction between lower and appelate courts is that appeals courts do not normally hear new evidence. They are primaily interested in legal interpretation.
Ec
jayjg wrote:
Thank you Ray, that's exactly the spirit in which I intended it, and the reason I did not name the individual in question.
I know you didn't, but the details were so specific it was immediately clear to me (and others) who you were talking about. I just didn't find the not-quite-naming and shaming helpful.
Chris
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Thank you Ray, that's exactly the spirit in which I intended it, and the reason I did not name the individual in question.
I know you didn't, but the details were so specific it was immediately clear to me (and others) who you were talking about. I just didn't find the not-quite-naming and shaming helpful.
I'm sure a small number of people who were aware of the specific incidents knew which individual I was referring to, but that's hardly the point. Most of these discussions involve a lot of hand-waving arguments, people making claims with no concrete examples. Rather than doing the same, I provided a live and relevant example of the issues I was raising. And to remind everyone, the issue raised was not about whether or not one particular admin was behaving badly, but more broadly whether people are becoming involved in Wikipedia (and even becoming admins) without any familiarity with its norms or committment to its goals. When one notices that an administrator is behaving quite badly, and then realizes that fewer than 1/4 of his edits are actually to articles, and that he has as many edits to his user page as he has to all encyclopedia articles combined, these issues are highlighted starkly.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
I'm sure a small number of people who were aware of the specific incidents knew which individual I was referring to, but that's hardly the point. Most of these discussions involve a lot of hand-waving arguments, people making claims with no concrete examples. Rather than doing the same, I provided a live and relevant example of the issues I was raising. And to remind everyone, the issue raised was not about whether or not one particular admin was behaving badly, but more broadly whether people are becoming involved in Wikipedia (and even becoming admins) without any familiarity with its norms or committment to its goals. When one notices that an administrator is behaving quite badly, and then realizes that fewer than 1/4 of his edits are actually to articles, and that he has as many edits to his user page as he has to all encyclopedia articles combined, these issues are highlighted starkly.
Maybe he's a bad admin, he certainly gets involved right in the thick of the latest and greatest controversy on Wikipedia, but he also received 53 support votes on his RFA, including a number of high-profile editors who do not normally vote or typically vote oppose. And despite all the controversy he's in recently, he still managed to become elected to one of Esperanza's positions with 19 votes. I don't want to get into some kind of psychological analysis of everyone's voting habits, but I believe if someone is unsuitable then they would never get as many votes as he has.
Yes, maybe he hasn't been editing the article space enough. I probably don't edit the article namespace enough either. But if what he is doing is building friendships and welcoming people to Wikipedia, then I don't see what he is doing as a problem. People are more likely to contribute if they feel happy here and I believe his actions are helping in this area. He isn't directly building the encyclopaedia, but he's helping get others to build it.
Chris
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
I'm sure a small number of people who were aware of the specific
incidents
knew which individual I was referring to, but that's hardly the
point. Most
of these discussions involve a lot of hand-waving arguments, people
making
claims with no concrete examples. Rather than doing the same, I
provided a
live and relevant example of the issues I was raising. And to remind everyone, the issue raised was not about whether or not one particular
admin
was behaving badly, but more broadly whether people are becoming
involved in
Wikipedia (and even becoming admins) without any familiarity with its
norms
or committment to its goals. When one notices that an administrator is behaving quite badly, and then realizes that fewer than 1/4 of his edits
are
actually to articles, and that he has as many edits to his user page as
he
has to all encyclopedia articles combined, these issues are highlighted starkly.
Maybe he's a bad admin, he certainly gets involved right in the thick of the latest and greatest controversy on Wikipedia, but he also received 53 support votes on his RFA, including a number of high-profile editors who do not normally vote or typically vote oppose. And despite all the controversy he's in recently, he still managed to become elected to one of Esperanza's positions with 19 votes. I don't want to get into some kind of psychological analysis of everyone's voting habits, but I believe if someone is unsuitable then they would never get as many votes as he has.
Yes, maybe he hasn't been editing the article space enough. I probably don't edit the article namespace enough either. But if what he is doing is building friendships and welcoming people to Wikipedia, then I don't see what he is doing as a problem. People are more likely to contribute if they feel happy here and I believe his actions are helping in this area. He isn't directly building the encyclopaedia, but he's helping get others to build it.
You seem to know him well. Since you've decided to defend him, tell me, when he insists that "fair use" images can be used on Userboxes, and that attempts to delete them are attempts by "the mob" to enforce "copyright paranoia" and "wiki-law" that have "no basis in reality", and then edit wars both the policy pages which forbid it, and those who delete the images from the userboxes, is he helping others build the encyclopedia?
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
You seem to know him well. Since you've decided to defend him, tell me, when he insists that "fair use" images can be used on Userboxes, and that attempts to delete them are attempts by "the mob" to enforce "copyright paranoia" and "wiki-law" that have "no basis in reality", and then edit wars both the policy pages which forbid it, and those who delete the images from the userboxes, is he helping others build the encyclopedia?
No, I think he's wrong on this issue, and I've promised elsewhere to talk to him about it.
Chris
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
You seem to know him well. Since you've decided to defend him, tell me, when he insists that "fair use" images can be used on Userboxes, and
that
attempts to delete them are attempts by "the mob" to enforce "copyright paranoia" and "wiki-law" that have "no basis in reality", and then edit
wars
both the policy pages which forbid it, and those who delete the images
from
the userboxes, is he helping others build the encyclopedia?
No, I think he's wrong on this issue, and I've promised elsewhere to talk to him about it.
Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular individual. Rather, this is a symptom: Why do we have administrators who are unfamiliar with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the concept? Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely ignore any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia?
Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't going to fix the root cause.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular individual. Rather, this is a symptom: Why do we have administrators who are unfamiliar with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the concept? Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely ignore any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia?
Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't going to fix the root cause.
I really don't know why people think that, but this problem isn't just related to userboxes. There are a number of admins who have fair use images on their user pages, and they aren't all in "the userbox crew". A cursory look at the arbitration committee candidates shows a number with fair use images on their user page also.
Chris
jayjg wrote:
Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular individual. Rather, this is a symptom: Why do we have administrators who are unfamiliar with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the concept? Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely ignore any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia?
Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't going to fix the root cause.
Well, I talked with Karmafist for about an hour trying to persuade him to stop his actions on this matter. Unfortunately it didn't go anywhere, but perhaps I can add some insight based on the discussion as to why he is acting the way he does.
Firstly, one of the things about the internet is its anonymity which helps lower the barrier for social interaction. People with autism and related psychological conditions such as Asperger's syndrome tend to gravitate towards it. One reason I think for his actions is due to the fact that he has Asperger's which means he finds social interaction difficult and because of what he sees as hostile comments tends to cloud his judgement of the entirety of the group who hold similar viewpoints - for example, he has had bad experiences with Kelly Martin, who holds that fair use images shouldn't be in user/template namespace. Unfortunately this clouds his perception of others who hold similar viewpoints on fair use, even those with who he has got on perfectly fine otherwise (guilt by association).
Part of the reason he is re-adding them is because people like Kelly Martin are removing them - due to Kelly's actions which he sees as a breach of policy and process (concepts which he agrees with), and due to the fact his opinion has been ignored or dismissed by some, he feels he has no other way to "be heard" than to breach policy himself (a fact he fully admits) and just undo the removal of the images. This scenario has arisen due to a lack of communication between both "sides", a lack of presuming good faith by all and temporary gaps in civility. We're all guilty of it. As they say, you can do nice things to someone 99 times and be an arsehole once, and their opinion of you will be that you're an arsehole.
So what can we do to stop situations like this from occurring?
Obviously we all need to be civil, presume good faith and listen to, and respond to other's opinions, so they don't feel ignored. Being ignored is more socially exclusive than being told you are wrong, and for people who are not as naturally talented at communications with others, who tend to be more common on Wikipedia and other online communities than in offline communities, this is definitely a common problem. It's much easier to ignore someone on the internet than in 'real life'. We also need to be more apologetic when people misinterpret, answer every message we get, even if just to say "thanks for the message". We need to increase our communication with each other and to make it more friendly.
Just some thoughts for digestion,
Chris
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Well, that's great, but again, the issue isn't this particular individual. Rather, this is a symptom: Why do we have administrators who are unfamiliar with policy? Why do we have administators who are unwilling to accept community consensus, and, indeed, seem almost unfamiliar with the concept? Why do we have administrators who think that it is so important to have "fair use" images on userboxes that it is reasonable to completely ignore any risks of copyright lawsuits against Wikipedia?
Those are the issues here, and your having a chat with your friend isn't going to fix the root cause.
Well, I talked with Karmafist for about an hour trying to persuade him to stop his actions on this matter. Unfortunately it didn't go anywhere, but perhaps I can add some insight based on the discussion as to why he is acting the way he does.
I sti;; read Jay's comment as directed to the policy level rather than the individual user level. A good admin should be able to distinguish between these levels.
Firstly, one of the things about the internet is its anonymity which helps lower the barrier for social interaction. People with autism and related psychological conditions such as Asperger's syndrome tend to gravitate towards it. One reason I think for his actions is due to the fact that he has Asperger's which means he finds social interaction difficult and because of what he sees as hostile comments tends to cloud his judgement of the entirety of the group who hold similar viewpoints - for example, he has had bad experiences with Kelly Martin, who holds that fair use images shouldn't be in user/template namespace. Unfortunately this clouds his perception of others who hold similar viewpoints on fair use, even those with who he has got on perfectly fine otherwise (guilt by association).
I agree that people with conditions such as Asperger's will tend to gravitate here. The anonymity can help them to feel that they can contribute on an equal footing with everyone else. The downside is that in return for being treated like everyone else, they must act like everyone else. The Wikipedian community cannot make particular allowances for these conditions when to do so would conflict with a person's anonymity.
Part of the reason he is re-adding them is because people like Kelly Martin are removing them - due to Kelly's actions which he sees as a breach of policy and process (concepts which he agrees with), and due to the fact his opinion has been ignored or dismissed by some, he feels he has no other way to "be heard" than to breach policy himself (a fact he fully admits) and just undo the removal of the images. This scenario has arisen due to a lack of communication between both "sides", a lack of presuming good faith by all and temporary gaps in civility. We're all guilty of it. As they say, you can do nice things to someone 99 times and be an arsehole once, and their opinion of you will be that you're an arsehole.
When otherwise normal little kids use this technique, and it works it becomes a learned strategy that they take into later life.
So what can we do to stop situations like this from occurring?
Obviously we all need to be civil, presume good faith and listen to, and respond to other's opinions, so they don't feel ignored. Being ignored is more socially exclusive than being told you are wrong, and for people who are not as naturally talented at communications with others, who tend to be more common on Wikipedia and other online communities than in offline communities, this is definitely a common problem. It's much easier to ignore someone on the internet than in 'real life'. We also need to be more apologetic when people misinterpret, answer every message we get, even if just to say "thanks for the message". We need to increase our communication with each other and to make it more friendly.
The sentiments there are good but not always practical. I can get far more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed analysis of a situation. That has nothing to do with the validity of my assessment. When it comes to answering messages one needs to be selective. Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility.
Ec
On 1/5/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
The sentiments there are good but not always practical. I can get far more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed analysis of a situation. That has nothing to do with the validity of my assessment. When it comes to answering messages one needs to be selective. Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility.
Ec
The other disadvantage to doing point-by-point dissertations on a topic is that you run the risk of the argument being SO LONG that no one will bother to read it, figuring it's someone just mouthing off. That's yet another way to get your argument sidestepped.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I sti;; read Jay's comment as directed to the policy level rather than the individual user level. A good admin should be able to distinguish between these levels.
Yes, of course. I am distinguishing between them - but understanding the reasoning behind why one person is doing it, who is part of a group, will usually show up reasoning for why the entire group is behaving as it is.
I agree that people with conditions such as Asperger's will tend to gravitate here. The anonymity can help them to feel that they can contribute on an equal footing with everyone else. The downside is that in return for being treated like everyone else, they must act like everyone else. The Wikipedian community cannot make particular allowances for these conditions when to do so would conflict with a person's anonymity.
Our particular allowances for them would be nothing more than more civility and more presumption of good faith, same as for everyone else. I'm not arguing for anything more than this.
When otherwise normal little kids use this technique, and it works it becomes a learned strategy that they take into later life.
Do you have a solution?
The sentiments there are good but not always practical. I can get far more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed analysis of a situation. That has nothing to do with the validity of my assessment. When it comes to answering messages one needs to be selective. Answering every message can be a physicla impossibility.
You raise fair practical points. A pointed one liner is good but if people interpret it as rude then it is not good, even if you think they are being overly sensitive.
Answering every message may be a physical impossibility, but that doesn't mean that an attempt shouldn't be made.
Chris
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I agree that people with conditions such as Asperger's will tend to gravitate here. The anonymity can help them to feel that they can contribute on an equal footing with everyone else. The downside is that in return for being treated like everyone else, they must act like everyone else. The Wikipedian community cannot make particular allowances for these conditions when to do so would conflict with a person's anonymity.
Our particular allowances for them would be nothing more than more civility and more presumption of good faith, same as for everyone else. I'm not arguing for anything more than this.
When otherwise normal little kids use this technique, and it works it becomes a learned strategy that they take into later life.
Do you have a solution?
It's a little late for us to undo bad parenting. Beyond that we shouldn't be too quick to give in to obvious whines. Sometimes when you put kids to sleep you just have to let them cry themselves to sleep.
The sentiments there are good but not always practical. I can get far more attention with a pointed one-liner than with a long detailed analysis of a situation. That has nothing to do with the validity of my assessment. When it comes to answering messages one needs to be selective. Answering every message can be a physical impossibility.
You raise fair practical points. A pointed one liner is good but if people interpret it as rude then it is not good, even if you think they are being overly sensitive.
An effective one liner is often instinctive, though some need to be thought out. The ones that don't work more often get met with a shrug rather than an offended feeling.
Answering every message may be a physical impossibility, but that doesn't mean that an attempt shouldn't be made.
There are some messages to which you can add nothing. At some point threads just get talked out.
Ec
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
Obviously we all need to be civil, presume good faith and listen to, and respond to other's opinions, so they don't feel ignored.
I know that bickering on the list is not good, but I can't ignore this hypocrisy. Chris Jenkinson (user:Talrias), an admin, who calls for civility, has caused me considerable trouble recently (to the point where I've had to ask him to leave me alone) because I objected to his wheel warring over the block of [[User:Marsden]]. Since then he has made several personal attacks against me on talk pages, including calling me a "liar," http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Talrias&diff=prev&am... and deleting another admin's NPA warning about it, then accusing me of "whining" when I wrote to the list yesterday about my concerns over the admin selection process (prompted precisely by behavior like his).
More sorry details here. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noti...
Regardless of how right we may be about an issue, there's no excuse for anything that even looks like one admin harassing another, or calling each other liars. This is the behavior that I'm noticing more and more, which is why I expressed concern yesterday. To see one of the culprits pontificate about the need to be civil after publicly displaying the opposite behavior is too much.
Sarah
slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I know that bickering on the list is not good, but I can't ignore this hypocrisy. Chris Jenkinson (user:Talrias), an admin, who calls for civility, has caused me considerable trouble recently (to the point where I've had to ask him to leave me alone)
You have asked me to leave you alone, but you have no qualms about then going around posting messages accusing me of various things when the conversation is completely unrelated to you? That's hypocrisy.
I don't feel this is the place to highlight the factual inaccuracies in SlimVirgin's previous email, so I invite people to read my talk page and the administrator's noticeboard. I stand by my comments, I have made them with an honest heart and mind and I know that other people will feel the same.
Chris
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
who do not normally vote or typically vote oppose. And despite all the controversy he's in recently, he still managed to become elected to one of Esperanza's positions with 19 votes.
Well to be fair, nobody actually thinks an Esperanza position means anything. Isn't it just some sort of social club?
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Well to be fair, nobody actually thinks an Esperanza position means anything. Isn't it just some sort of social club?
I don't know what Esperanza actually is, but that's not really the point. The point is that if he was eminently unsuitable, he wouldn't be voted for.
Chris
On 1/4/06, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Well to be fair, nobody actually thinks an Esperanza position means anything. Isn't it just some sort of social club?
I don't know what Esperanza actually is, but that's not really the point. The point is that if he was eminently unsuitable, he wouldn't be voted for.
I don't think Michael Foot made much of a party leader, but I'd vote for him as a constituency MP and, if I were still a party member, I'd vote for him on the NEC. I'd say the same of those two former conservative leaders that I've forgotten the name of, the bald Yorkshireman and the Essex MP with the Japanese ancestry. These three chaps all have bags of skill and talent, but not all skills are shared out equally. They all lacked the skill to unite their respective parties. Conversely, someone may have such skills but be lacking in other areas (Neil Kinnock, a magnificant unifier and great orator whose downfall was lack of charisma in front of the TV camera). "Eminently unsuitable" presupposes a job description, and a vote for an Esperanza position probably only requires willingness to do...whatever it is Esperanza people do.
On 1/3/06, Ben Emmel bratsche1@gmail.com wrote:
I am noticing some of the same issues: Users are slipping through RfA without much opposition, but without much community support either. They seem to be decent editors, mostly doing work in a small area of Wikipedia, and when (self)nominated for adminship, they get their "Wikifriends" to support them, and boom! admin tools. Inevitably, wheel warring (large or small) will happen from these admins, because they actually don't understand or generally support the long-standing policies that we have here.
I don't like saying this, but the scenario described eerily mirrors my own nomination. (Except for the "Wikifriends" part. I knew few of the users who voted for me.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wikiacc)